29 Facts About Xu Dishan

Xu Dishan was a Chinese author, translator and folklorist.

Xu Dishan received his education in China, the United States, Britain, and India; while in school, he studied diverse topics in religion, philosophy, and literature.

Xu Dishan wrote a plethora of academic and fictitious works during his life, many of which he published under the pen name Luo Huasheng.

Xu Dishan was best known for his short stories that focus on the people from the southern provinces of China and Southeast Asia.

Xu Dishan was a strong proponent of the Latinization Movement and believed that writing Chinese with a phonetic alphabet would greatly increase literacy.

Xu Dishan was born in Tainan, Taiwan on 14 February 1893.

Xu Dishan was one of eight children born to his father, Xu Nanying, and mother, Wu Shen.

Xu Dishan's father was a Taiwanese jinshi who assisted Liu Yongfu to establish the Republic of Formosa in Tainan.

Xu Dishan spoke both Hokkien and Teochew as his mother tongues.

Xu Dishan accompanied his father and taught in primary and secondary schools in Zhangzhou.

In 1918, while Xu Dishan was studying at Yenching University, he married his wife, Lin Yuesen, and they had a daughter.

In 1917, Xu Dishan attended Yenching University for his undergraduate studies.

Xu Dishan graduated in 1920 with his bachelor's degree in literature and enrolled in the seminary at Yenching University to continue his study of comparative religion.

Xu Dishan then moved to England, and completed another bachelor's degree at the University of Oxford in folklore, Indian philosophy, religious history, and Sanskrit which he completed in 1926.

Xu Dishan spent time teaching at Peking University and Tsinghua University, two elite universities in Beijing.

Xu Dishan taught courses that focused on Indian literature and Sanskrit.

Xu Dishan's professorship entailed teaching the Confucian classics as well as literature from the Tang and Song dynasties.

Xu Dishan's writing style diverges from many of his contemporaries.

Xu Dishan takes up Southeast Asian communities as his subjects in many of his stories.

Xu Dishan's fiction tends to be romantic and involve sophisticated plot lines which deal with human nature and how to live a good life.

Xu Dishan published his writing under the pen name Luo Huasheng.

Xu Dishan continued to publish short publications in Xiaoshuo yuebao while he studied and taught.

Besides Indian literature, Xu Dishan wrote on a variety of topics.

Xu Dishan gathered works written in English about the Opium Wars, and published Da zhong ji: Yapian zhanzheng qian Zhong Ying jiaoshe shiliao in 1931, and in 1933 published a collection of sacred Buddhist texts: Fozang zimu yinde.

Xu Dishan involved himself in several patriotic activities, including writing a one act historical drama in 1938, Nu guoshi which was performed by the Women's Student Association at the University of Hong Kong.

Xu Dishan was one of the founding members of the National Resistance Association of Literary and Art Workers.

Xu Dishan was a strong proponent of the Latinization Movement.

Xu Dishan believed that the Chinese script needed to be reformed and that China should use the Western Roman alphabet to help spell out words phonetically, instead of using characters.

Xu Dishan was an advocate of latinization because he saw it as a path to dramatically increase national literacy rates.